[Species287] used a big fan and water pump which he already had on hand. All together that saved him about $200 (he’s pricing in Australian Dollars but they’re almost even right now with USD). The soap solution is super cheap, just a bottle of dish washing liquid mixed to the correct proportions with water, but you’ll need a way to apply it to the fan. Some irrigation supplies connected to the fan grate with zip ties did the trick. The pump is submerged in the bubble liquid, causing it to spray from the nozzles near the fan. But this won’t actually create bubbles. The last piece is a bag-shaped hunk of shade cloth from the garden store. Each pore of the cloth acts as a bubble ring. The cloth gets sprayed with soap by the sprinklers and the air from the fan then blows the bubbles.

What I did when my kids were young was to hook up a ‘home spa bath bubble mat’ to a shop vac, then float it in a kiddy pool full of water and Johnson’s Baby Shampoo. By floating the mat, the bubbles stayed tiny enough that the resulting foam was dense enough that they used pieces of cardboard to carve it into different shapes. I imagine a soaker hose hooked up to an air compressor might do the same sort of thing.

This would be a hit at Foam City.org. It used to be a place that sold cut to order foam for sofa or sign. The name stuck! Now it’s artists spaces and a performance space hosting all ages shows and multimedia events. They even did a ‘duino workshop there.